


The All's and the One's

by MintBrownieAngelfish



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alphonse Elric Centric, Because there aren't enough Alphonse fics out there, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, I headcanon that Alphonse likes to draw and use that basis to explore his and Ed's characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26831629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintBrownieAngelfish/pseuds/MintBrownieAngelfish
Summary: Alphonse has a lot of time to himself at night.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	The All's and the One's

_“This body comes with many inconveniences. But inconveniences don't make me miserable! There is no reason for you to pity me! My life was put back together with alchemy by my brother. If I deny myself, that would mean I'm denying my brother” -Alphonse Elric_

* * *

After Ed had gone to sleep in the hotel bed, Alfonse brought out his sketchbook. You had a lot of time on your hands when you essentially got 8 extra hours every day. As much as he wanted his body back, he wouldn’t deny that there were perks to an armor one. He could do whatever he wanted as long as it was quiet (he didn't want to wake Ed up. His lack of sleep could be another reason he was so short). He read books, adventure and scientific alike. His experience on Yock Island gave him a unique ability to accurately judge the realism of survivalist stories, so he especially liked those. ‘That was not an accurate rabbit trap, the rope design is all wrong. It would just make a knot and not catch anything!’ What he did the most though, was draw. He’d already had a pretty steady hand due to the precision required of alchemy circles. It wasn’t too hard to use that as a basis for drawing.

Granted, it hadn’t been easy initially after his transformation. People didn’t fully appreciate how much having flesh fingers helped out when you were doing finicky work. Even automail was better than straight-up armor because an automail prosthetic had nerve endings. In other words, automail could feel holding a pencil even if it couldn’t feel the specific texture of the wood. Not armor. He’d broken more than his fair share of pencils and alchemy chalk by squeezing too hard. There had been 4 years of nights to practice though, and now he was no slouch.

Al especially loved drawing animals. In real life, they generally didn’t have that initial ‘what in the world am I seeing’ reaction that humans did when they first met him. Sure, they’d give him a sniff, but afterwards they wouldn’t hesitate to crawl all over him. The little outcropping by the ‘neck’ of his armor head was perfect for kittens and puppies to curl around. The bigger animals liked to roughhouse, and seeing how he was big, metal, and could move of his own volition, Al was the perfect mix of playmate and chew-toy.

Ed thought it was freaky how animals loved him so much. Unfortunately, every animal they met seemed to have a vendetta against Ed. Brother was probably too loud for them.

Tonight, he was sketching Mei’s panda, Xing, having a stick-pull game with the kitten he’d saved from the rain a few weeks ago. He drew a few snapshots of the battle. The first was an image of them coming across a fallen bamboo stick at the top of a hill. They both wanted the stick, and decided to play for it. Al drew a panel of them looking comically intensely at each other over the stick, which gave him a little chuckle. In the end, the kitten used it’s slightly bigger size to its advantage, and used its hind legs to flip Xing over its head. He landed flat on his back in the grass behind. The kitten took the stick in its paw, lifting it in triumph above its head. Xing rolled himself down the hill in shame; pounding his little fists against the grass as he went.

Al smiled. His days were as a general rule hectic and life threatening (or soul-threatening in his case). It was a nice contrast to draw cute animals doing cute things. There was a balance to the world, like teacher had taught him. Just as there were corrupt governments with philosopher’s stone murder plots, there were little animals having bamboo fights. You had to keep both bits in mind if you wanted to fully understand the world of all is one, and one is all. It’s not exactly great ethics to fight a war for all without understanding the ‘one’s’.

Ed rolled over in his sleep, his flesh arm flopping off the side.

Al sighed. Ed didn't care about the 'one's' as much. He was lazer-focused and driven, working literally every waking moment on some level of his brain to get both of their bodies back. In most ways, that was a good thing. Ed was constantly motivated and could decide quickly what action to take next in a crisis (which, what part of their life wasn’t a crisis to some degree?). Al loved him so much, and knew he wouldn’t be anywhere near as close to getting his body back if he didn’t have his brother by his side. Heck, he wouldn’t even exist without him. That being said, the pinpoint motivation meant that Ed missed opportunites to connect with the ‘one’s’ of the world. Al would love to stop and chat with Winry and Pinako after repairs, maybe stay an extra day and catch up with what was going on in the town, but nope. Ed wouldn’t give him the chance. He’d charge in with a “how fast can you get my automail done” and run off the minute his limbs were fixed. Al couldn’t help stopping to take care of an injured kitten, while Ed would berate him about not having the means to take care of it.

He knew the main source of that drive was Ed’s guilt-fueled sense of responsibility. Every day that Al continued in his armor was a reminder of Ed’s ‘failure as a brother’. Thus, he aimed all his hard-iron will to fix his ‘mistake’ as soon as he could. That guilt extended its boundaries beyond that, making Ed be one of the first people to jump into harm’s way at any given moment; insisting that everyone else had to be safe. Ed’s tendency to take responsibility for everything was one of the only things that made Al genuinely mad at him. Ruining their own lives was a _mutual_ effort, dang it. He and his brother had _agreed to work together_ to bring mom back. They’d even survived a deserted island and the-teacher-from-hell together to learn how to do it. Edward was a complete idiot of an older brother for taking all the blame, and Al had told him so to his face, several times. He’d even reinforced it with punches once. It had never quite stuck. Stubbornness was Ed’s most defining feature, and it wasn’t exactly in a hurry to leave, even if leaving would do him a whole bunch of good.

Well… Al was patient. He had been before the human transmutation and he was doubly so now after all the long nights. He could wait for his brother to stop being dumb even as he waited for his body back. In the meantime, he had his sketchbook.  
Ed started to stir, accidentally knocking his blanket off in the process. The cold woke him up enough to scowl at the blanket, sigh, and get out of bed.

“Did you have a good rest, Brother?”

“Yeah, until the blanket decided to fall off. What did you draw last night?” Ed walked over and peered over Al’s shoulder.

After he saw the comic, he responded  
“Mei wouldn’t be happy to hear Xiao-Mei lost. She might be disappointed enough to finally dump you.”

“You can’t dump someone you’re not dating!”

“Someone’d better tell her that you’re not”, Ed grinned, sliding his shoes on, “I’m willing to bet she’s going around telling everyone in Amestris how great and gentlemanly her future husband is going to be”

“Ughh, why did I have to say that?”

Ed laughed, gave Al’s arm a good punch with his metal arm, and they went on their way to continue destroying the government.

**Author's Note:**

> Today has been brought to you by the Alphonse appreciation company. Please leave your kittens at the door.


End file.
